The Policing of Leftist Jews

With a Jewish presidential candidate succeeding in the Democratic primaries for the first time in American history, I begrudgingly expected anti-semitism from the opposition. What I did not expect, though, is a form of anti-semitic erasure protruding from our own ranks: Jewish gatekeeping.

As one of the oldest recorded monotheistic religions in the world, Judaism has a rich culture more than 3,000 years old. Zionism, meanwhile, is just about 120 years old and has been enforced by horrid human rights abuses ever since (which, in my essential understanding of Judaism, are not Jewish values). To conflate Judaism and Zionism as two constants reliant on one another to exist is to erase a majority of Jewish history, as well as submit to colonial ideals of Judaism.